One of the most crucial decisions for investors and plan sponsors is the selection of funds among the thousands of available alternatives. We stress that an investor first needs to specify a target alpha, i.e., the expected fund return in excess of a benchmark, and that the target alpha...

The growing dominance of the core and explore model – a large passive index combined with a collection of high tracking error satellite portfolios – in conjunction with the growth of factor investing has renewed interest in how to allocate among different equity strategies. We study this...

Using a simple model of equity valuation, we de fine stock market bubbles and anti-bubbles as periods in which the dynamics of valuation is temporarily explosive. We identify a mechanism for the creation and destruction of bubbles and anti-bubbles that depends on the interaction between...

Conventional wisdom holds that multiperiod portfolio optimization problems are best, if not only, solved by dynamic programming. But dynamic programming suffers from the curse of dimensionality whereby optimization becomes intractable as time horizon and number of assets increase, thereby...

Basic volatility and predictability characteristics of the aggregate US stock market over the last century can be understood in terms of the dynamic properties of mean reverting equity discount rates. Additionally, high prices in good times and low prices in bad times can be understood in terms...

A no-arbitrage pricing model with inflation as the only priced risk factor explains the bond, equity, and value premia observed in the United States over the past sixty years. Even though inflation is the only priced factor, in an economy with three state variables -- inflation, the real rate,...

I introduce a method of portfolio selection based on the idea that investment risk is not having enough wealth when you need it. Not having enough wealth translates into a required return. When you need wealth translates into an investment horizon. These two ingredients, when combined with...

We investigate monitoring of CEO incentives and pay levels by institutional investors. Consistent with the microstructural monitoring equilibrium of Noe (2002), we show that option-grant pay-performance sensitivity is positively related to institutional trading intensity. Trading intensity also...

CEO flow incentives, both stock options and bonuses, are positively related to measures of firm market valuation and operating performance suggesting incentives are an important mechanism to align CEO interests with shareholders. These findings are robust to alternative measures of firm...

Using a matched sample of firms that do and do not undertake major investments we find that CEO incentives with option-based asymmetric payoffs greatly increase the likelihood that a firm will increase risk by undertaking both major real investments and acquisitions. In contrast, equity-based...